The problem of disposing of municipal solid wastes is rapidly approaching a state of crises as communities throughout the United States find themselves faced with a rapidly shrinking number of available landfill sites. It is estimated that Americans dispose of 160 million tons of solid waste each year, of which about 80% is dumped into landfills, 10% incinerated, and the remainder recycled.
Many local governments are encouraging or even mandating that homeowners separate their trash in an effort to increase the percentage of recycled waste. Despite efforts to induce the public to separate trash into plastic, glass, metal, paper and other components, the great majority of municipal waste is commingled. There exists a need, therefore, for a process to rapidly and efficiently separate and recover commingled municipal waste into commercially pure and valuable components.
It is old in the art to use magnetic means to remove ferrous materials from a waste stream and handpicking means to separate different colored glasses and plastics. The instant invention combines these methods with mechanical processes to form a unique system of separating glass, plastics, aluminum cans, and ferrous materials at the highest rate and percentage of materials recovery now available. Prior art recycling plants typically process four to five tons of commingled municipal waste each hour. The preferred embodiment of the present invention processes approximately twenty-five tons per hour and can be easily refitted to process substantially more tons per hour.